User:Biebieh/Mythologies Created by Canadian Newspapers in the 19th, 20th, and 21st Centuries

In this entry, mythology has a special meaning with regards to newspapers. For mythologies referring to stories of wonders related to gods or supernatural heroes, click here. Mythology, in the sense of media, is an “idealized version of the past, especially as embodying significant cultural realities,” states the Canadian Oxford Dictionary. Graeme Patterson has also called a myth ‘a complex of symbols and images imbedded in a narrative,’ therefore, newspapers work as mirrors of the mythologies for a society. The mythologies created by the Canadian newspapers are the portraits of Canadians; they are the mirrors of Canada that the newspapers display out there for the Canadians to see themselves in. Mythologies unveil the deep patterns of the narrative and the coherence in the culture. Mythologies created in late nineteenth and the first half of twentieth centuries focus more on nation-building, and a focus on democracy reform has been spotted. Mythology of technology innovation has also gradually stood out since the nineteenth century.

The press wanted to present a portrait of the country that matched their readers’ portrait. The press was the guardian of orthodoxy and tried to mirror its readers’ values, according to the media theorist Hackett.

The Dogma of Modernity

The dogma of modernity was built on the ideas of progress, nationality, and democracy.

Progress

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the premise of the mythology of progress is that newspaper editors would believe in continuous changes of the period. Journalists enjoyed viewpoints such as ‘No period of humanity has seen so much change as that of 1840 to 1890’ ("aucune période de l'humanité n'a vu autant de transformation que celle de 1840 à 1890") and ‘Old systems are tottering and new ideas are being pushed rapidly to the front,’ ‘new social forces have been created and are at work,’ causing ‘problems before the statesmen and philanthropists of today which cannot be solved by rules and precedents of former ages. ’ The changes newspapers detailed showed grand contradictions in the different groups of readers. Religious beliefs were the dividing lines of the newspapers. For instance, in Quebec where the Catholics hate modernism, the newspapers thus cooperated with the ritual of anti-modernism, they look askance at sprit of progress ‘à rebours,’ backwards. Progress is portrayed as the cause of any backwards movement and destruction, like protest and revolution. Similarly, newspapers in English Canada cater to what the Protestants believe, anti-materialism. Newspapers in this area might abound in displeasure over the ‘extravagance, waste, ostentation,’ and other habits that impaired modernism and modern life. After complaints and moorings over the people’s behaviors, the press was also concerned on the effects the newspapers’ negative attitudes brought to the society. La Minerve therefore found it necessary to demonstrate and promote something valuable -- the virtue of tradition and the historical lessons. The newspapers in the nineteenth century also have a common faith in the progress itself, whether it is technological renovation or the spread of religion.

Nationality

The mid to late nineteenth century was a period of nation-building, or myth-making by the Canadian newspapers. As the 1867 Confederation, ‘a new nationality’ is used to describe the result of the British North American federation. The francophone newspapers spoke highly of the Confederation as the protector of the Québécois nationality, whereas the anglophone press recognized the same union as the beginning of a pan-Canadian nationality. It is of equal importance to define nationality. The newspapers have answers the question ‘What made a nationality’: history, culture and race, and self-interest. Canadian and Canadiens were the history, and together they reflected the history in the mirror of heroic narrative. “Canadians strove to overcome the wilderness and block the ambitions of the American giant” (159). The press also fully supported schools to teach patriotic history and celebrate more national holidays, such as St-Jean-Baptiste Day, Queen Victoria’s birthday, and Dominion Day, “when people could recall their glorious pasts” (159). On culture and race, the Quebecois press claimed that the Canadians were “the last of the Germanic series” of races, and “the nation nearest the climax” in Montreal Star in 1869. It is exactly the Catholic fact that served to separate Quebec and made the Quebecois live proudly in their “splendid tradition” in Canada, an Anglo-Protestant country. In contrast, the nationalist credo in Anglo Canada was the Canada’s un-American traits portrayed in newspapers. They believed Canada had a different form of government from that of the United States. Furthermore, they insisted their distinction in the mode of life, ideology, and anything else. The final answer to what built a nationality is self-interest. Newspapers captured the big and bright future of spacious Canada and her abundant natural resources: while the French Canadian newspapers explored the Northern Quebec, the English Canadian editors blessed settlements everywhere. Until today, the Canadian newspapers are still creating the images of the grand Canada that asks for more investment and development on the virgin soil, in the interminable forest, and the mineral treasures.

Democracy

In the end of the nineteenth century, democracy was not seen as a fair honor because they believed that the alleged democracy, which entitled each man equal suffrage, allowed the ordinary people to run the rampant, which was nonsense, on the grounds that the mob failed to understand the complex world; and thus the people were convinced that democracy tended to level down the quality of the entirety. “Democracy is a ruthless deity that must be worshipped by sacrifices of nobility, and it is as insatiable as it is ignoble, as pretentious as unworthy, and has a precocity and growth that is only bounded by its self-destruction.’ (161) Newspapers amply demonstrated horrors like this. Even on its deathbed, the supreme papal newspaper L’Étendard warned once more the reformers intent on obliterating the legislative council that their march to perfection was really to demagogy (“marche à la perfection” was really “vers la démagogie,” 161) Democracy however was on the march elsewhere in Canada. One of the most famous quotation described that democracy was “nothing but a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” in words of the Toronto News (26 November 1983). Radical newspapers maintained that suffrage was “a magic formula” which would accelerate the sanitization of corrupt politics. Nevertheless, in the first half of twentieth century followed, the old, negative views on democracy again became popular. The idea of democracy only for elites was enhanced by many newspapers, among which Walter Lippmann attracted great attention. Lippmann, the leading advocate for the idea that meaningful decisions could only be by the elites who were trustful and who understood the matrices of politics. Lippmann’s statement gave the impression that people were ignorant of politics and did not want to get involved with their country’s decision-making. The following survey results will show why Lippmann and his fellows believed so: “only one in five Americans could identify words from the Bill of Right, the most sacred document in the pantheon of American politics,” “fewer than one in five could name a single member of President Bill Clinton’s cabinet,” and “at best one in ten can usefully define the terms such as liberalism and conservatism.” Despite of Lippmann’s American nationality, he has made the his homeland’s good neighbor to the North examine herself too. In a national citizenship exam, only “48 per cent could identify ‘Confederation’ as the event that brought the original provinces together to form the Canadian federation, fewer than one-third of those surveyed could name the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms as the part of the constitution that guaranteed essential freedoms, and only 8 per cent knew that the Queen was the Head of State in Canada.” It is precisely the public’s lack of awareness and high political illiteracy rate that lead the newspapers to play the dominant role of disseminating and even propagating whatever the government wanted the people to know and believe. Now it appears ridiculous that back then people once misinterpreted democracy, while today most Canadians are born and raised in this more democratic nation and even in a more democratic family. “Democracy is upon us,” reported the Victoria Times more than a century ago, still is what Canadians believe today.

The Gospel of Order

Now Canada is being portrayed as the incarnation of POGG, that is, of peace, order, and good government. POGG, enshrined in the British North America Act, emphasizes on order, but not liberty. As the conservative Examiner (10 June 1891) has declared, ‘the prosperity and the civilization of the nation are dependent upon the enforcement of discipline and the preservation of order.’ The daily press made the belief accessible to extensive readers that a healthy community was shaped by a set of moral and social disciplines. The dominant discipline was Christianity, a notion ceaselessly repeated by both Catholic and Protestant newspapers. The London Advertiser (1893) stated that Christianity was the ‘chief cornerstone of civilization, a religion of progress, enlightenment and happiness”; Toronto Mail (1882) also agreed that “Christian influences [... ...] cannot be eliminated without razing to its foundations the entire fabric of society”. This implies that Christianity was the “fundamental social cement, uniting all classes, creeds, and races in one fellowship” (171). Besides the public sphere, the press also extended their influence into the private sphere, family, a smaller unit of community. It was believed that a family was an abode in which values rooted and guided a person’s life. What is more, education was also among the myths. Newspapers would ‘raise education to the status of a panacea,’ and identified education as the key to progress. Hard work, too, was believed to be the surest way to success in Canada. Toronto Mail, for instance, stated in 1879 that Canada is “where victory rests with the most industrious, most skillful and most daring.” (174) It was common to see denouncement of gambling of any kind, for example, criticizing “the hope of getting suddenly rich without any labour, exertion or the giving of any value” by Montreal Witness. Another discipline, often less covered on press, was patriotism. One should not only serve to “one’s home, one’s family, one’s business” but also should serve “one’s neighbors and to humanity” (175). In cooperation with patriotism, the press was once filled with anti-anarchism and referred to the anarchists as the “proved enemies of society.” The newspapers reached readers and preached them that anarchy was, in essence, “liberty run wild.” (176)

The Gospel of Harmony

Canada has long been identified as a multicultural mosaic; and Canadian and international newspapers usually describe the country using words and phrases such as ‘equilibre’ and ‘the mixed community.’ Indeed, the virtues of harmony mean equality in class, gender, religion, race, and so on. While the Toronto Mail (1876) promoted that mutual dependence means mutual assistance; and it is “the great social law - the principle which effectually binds men together in organized bodies”; the London Advertiser (1884) stated that “the chief source of danger arises from class legislation - class legislation demanded by powerful corporations seeking to establish monopolies, or by combined labour associations seriously interfering with the freedom of the laborer and his right to act alone and for himself.” On the notion of gender, what the journalists would like to write about in that age was the phenomenon of the increase in the entry number of women into job market. However the writings were not as open as what we read now, because at that time “editors believed God had given the sexes different natures, and different spheres of activity suited to these natures.” As years went by, it gradually appeared that women ought not to be treated as “man’s helpmate in the community at large as well as in the family.” It is also widely known that Canadians believe in the mythology that they live in a diverse and friendly country where welcomes all cultures. They will believe this to be true until one day they see the substantial differences in beliefs presented on press. Newspapers serve to test whether a myth still lives. When readers find out that in reality some Canadians can be racist or unwelcoming, this is the point at which a previous mythology dies. While the notion of multiculturalism stresses a dominant culture as the priority, and all the other cultures are minorities; interculturalism and pluralism aim to neglect the idea of a priority culture, rather, all cultures are of equal. Interculturalism, used by the nationalists in Quebec, is the harmonious balance of the entirety in which all cultures are placed on the same level. In modern twenty-first century Canada, what people care more about is their benefits, such as public health, housing, employment, and poverty. We see today’s newspapers tend to be more diverse; they cover almost every walk of life. Collectively newspapers always wield an enormous influence over public opinion. The country is shaped as one of the best places to live because of its tempting, high health care and pension; and the high taxation rate is usually omitted; or when discussing on people’s pressure of income tax, newspapers are prone to forget about the pension they will get when they get old. The nationals were portrayed as conservative and bourgeois, but now were multicultural or intercultural, also friendly, and welcoming to all kinds of cultures. Compared to the early stage of printing press, radical and progressive newspapers was increasingly dying.

Conclusion

Mythologies created by newspapers clarify complex signifiers within a cultural event or behavior. The myth of the mythologies created by newspapers is that they make readers believe whatever said is true, and act as if it is true. However the validity or the truthfulness do not seem important to the readers, or to the press. Mythologies are what a community believe, whether true or not. Until the reality shocks what they have already bore in mind, implanted by the mythologies created by the newspapers, do the mythologies die. What newspapers do is to test whether the myths are still alive.

People have to hold the shared belief if they intend to fit in the community. The newspaper itself is democracy, and the press is a platform for fixing and sharing thought, identifying and determining who Canadians are, entailing the connectedness and disconnection in this country. Newspapers, as the prime tool of the government and other authorities, put arduous efforts to celebrate the conformity and orthodoxy of the nation and her people. The elaborated mythologies of nationhood promoted the existing and emerging patterns of the country, and justified and legitimated the social hierarchy and power structure, and even the “social and political revolution.”

Being a mirror of the reality, reading newspapers becomes a useful way to understand how a particular society is like, and how the people's public images are like. Newspapers help shape the public conclusion.